The specialists discuss the roles of self-care in the life of a person.

Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

Self-care along with positive thinking plays a major role in shaping sound life and keeping chronic illnesses at bay, three specialists said on Thursday.

The three were Gleneagles Global Hospitals (India) surgical oncologist Dr. Sanket Shah, Skyline University (Nigeria) Biology & Microbiology professor Dr. Sanjay Kumar Pal and Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Colleges (Philippines) Research & Development Office director/Accreditation chairman/clinical psychologist Marichu Diendo. They were the main speakers at the “Fight Cancer-Breast Cancer Awareness Webinar” which Skyline University College (Sharjah) organised and collaborated with the two educational institutions.

They were joined by two Dubai residents – breast cancer survivors Filipina Marie France Vizcaya and Uzbekh Max Farhan – who testified that keeping a positive view and being happy, despite the odds and pain, have helped them move on and forward.

Telephone interviewed, Vizcaya said she was diagnosed with the more aggressive type of breast cancer – Triple Negative Breast Cancer in 2018, which led to her testing for the hereditary BRCA1 gene-she was positive. Cleared of the disease in 2019 and after undergoing surgery, she is currently on a phase of lung cancer since her most aggressive breast cancer has 70 to 90 per cent chances of recurring: “Thank God that I never missed out on my regular monthly cancer check ups even this pandemic. It was last April that I was diagnosed with lung cancer.”

Relating through the interview that her breast cancer journey made her adhere to balanced diet and boxing sessions at a gym as cancer patients need to engage in “suitable physical exercises for strength and endurance,” Vizcaya shared at the virtual forum: “ I knew then that God was with me when my oncologist informed me about a foundation going to (assist). God has been with me all along. I am not alone. It is not about having a strong faith in Him but a deep one which has helped me become stronger before my family particularly my mommy worried about my condition. I am grateful that God has given me the opportunity to make people and my co-patients be aware of what I have learnt and been learning (through this disease.)”

Shah discussed in “Medical Perspective & Causes of Breast Cancer” the importance of self-care by way of the traditional regular self-breast examination from age 20, regular medical expert consultations and check-ups from ages 20 to 30 and the regular mammography from age 40 as observed in some countries and from age 50 in others.

He said that early diagnosis can have “30 per cent of these cancers preventable” with five to 10 years of survival for Stage 1 as survival rates drastically drop at Stages 3 and 4.

Diendo talked on “The Role of Cognition in Psychotherapy,” claiming that man’s 12 billion neurons in the brain may be disturbed and cause damage brought about by over-generalisation, labelling, personalisation, discounting the positive and emotional reasoning as well as mental filtering, among others.

Diendo said cognitive restructuring and cognitive therapy are self-care approaches taught and supported by clinical psychologists. These are ways by which everyone has to learn; to be able to see the accurate in everything in order not to suffer perennially from the cognitive distortions that, together with other internal and external stressors, could blow one away physically and psychologically.

Pal mentioned his Calcutta Study through his lecture on “Natural Remedy and Practice in Healing Cancer,” about Complementary Medicine and Alternative Medicine people have learnt to adapt and adopt with debilitating diseases.

The 200-patient study revealed the reasons for acknowledging and going for the likes of yoga, acupuncture, ayurveda, homeopathy, hypnosis, reiki, massage therapy, traditional medicine, aromatherapy, music, and therapeutic touch

The reasons are: no conventional treatment option; financial as Conventional Medicine is exorbitantly priced; quality of life as patients generally are too weak and fragile from modern and conventional treatments such as chemotherapy; advertisement; pain and patient management; faith; frustration; and experimental or they want to try out.